Browsing Articles (MPP/LPF) by Author "Horst, Maja"

Public debate as the solution to controversies about science and technology

Horst, Maja(Frederiksberg, 2010)

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Abstract:

Developments in biotechnology have sparked a number of social controversies during the last decades and it has been common to understand public debate as a necessary prerequisite for the ability to deal with these controversies. This is particularly true in the case of Denmark, where public debate has been taking place for more than 25 years, and the paper uses the Danish example to argue that controversies about biotechnology intersect with fundamental political discussions about order and control in today’s knowledge society. Inspired by cultural theory and the work of Mary Douglas, it is proposed that arguments about biotechnology are justified by reference to particular articulations of social order. Her four notions of social order are identified in the analysis of a sample of arguments from four major Danish newspapers. On the basis of this typology, the paper examines the broad discursive consensus in favour of public debate and participatory exercises regarding the social responses to biotechnology. It does, however, simultaneously point to inherent tensions in the expectations towards public debate and its role in the creation of solutions to controversies over science and technology.

In response to the recent troubled history of risk-related technological development in Europe, one institutional reaction has been to advocate public deliberation as a means of achieving broad societal consensus over socio-scientific futures. We focus on ‘consensusing’ and the expectation of consensus, and consider both their roots and their performative consequences. We argue that consensus should be seen not simply as the absence of disagreement but as a particular political and ideological formation. We consider and explore the Danish model based on the folkelig concept of the common good, before turning to the wider European movement towards consensus-building. As presented here, consensusing becomes a focus for political contestation but also for nation- and institution-building. Rather than evaluating deliberation solely in terms of its short-term instrumental effects, consensusing should also be understood as performative of national and inter-national identity.